Noble Blood - The Double Agent

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

The Chevalier d'Éon was a diplomat, spy, traitor, and international celebrity. She's also sometimes regarded as one of the most prominent transgender figures in European history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. In 1771, the London Stock Exchange introduced a betting pool at three, two odds, that the notorious cultural figure, the Chevalier-Dillon, whose long resume unto that point included stints as a diplomat, spy, soldier, and political writer was biologically a woman. This was an actual betting pool that people bet actual money on.

The interest in the Chevalier-Dillon's genitalia became so frenzied that for a period of time, Dyeong couldn't leave her home without armed guards because of all the strangers who were trying to physically rip her clothes off and expose whatever was beneath, presumably to their financial advantage. After a year, the betting pool was abandoned because no progress was made on actually coming up with a determination that was deemed satisfactory. If you can possibly believe it, Diann wasn't willing to undergo a public physical examination. But Dianne's gender expression became such a topic of public interest in the 18th century that the court of the king's bench in England, and then ultimately the French government, would weigh in to issue formal declarations

that she was, in fact, a woman, and would and should be publicly treated as such. The Chevalier d'Ire d'Hont is one of history's most compelling and confounding figures, sometimes regarded as a proto-queer figure, the namesake for a number of groups that support the transgender community. she is sometimes incorrectly recognized as the first openly transgender person in Europe, but that declaration is both an oversimplification of the Chevalier and a fundamental misunderstanding of gender expression throughout history. Trans people have existed as long as people have existed.

And certainly, the Chevalier-Dillon would not have thought of herself as transgender, nor would she have had the vocabulary to do so. so. So perhaps understandably there's plenty of confusion and a good amount of disagreement, even among prominent historians, about the appropriate pronouns to use when we're talking

about the Chevalier. Personally, with the research and reading I've done, I've decided to use female pronouns continually throughout the episode. Just as the London Stock Exchange discovered, barring an inspection of a

now corpses, genitals, there's no quote unquote right answer for the Chevalier's biological sex. And to me, even thinking along those terms is, well, a little gross and intrusive, not to mention, as you'll find out later on, pretty unhelpful in the end. So what we do actually know about the Chevalier is that she spent the last three and a half decades of her life, making it very clear on an official and on a personal level that she was a woman and wanted to be treated as such. It feels like the very least I can do as a podcaster telling her story to take her at her word there. During her lifetime, the Chevalier was celebrated by contemporary feminist thinkers like Olamte de Gorge and Mary Wollstonecraft.

In her vindication of the rights of women, Wollstonecraft specifically includes Dione. as an example of a woman who was able to succeed in a man's world. Woolstonecraft writes, I shall not lay any great stress upon the example of a few women, Sappho, Elisa, Mrs. McCauley, the Empress of Russia, Madame Dion, etc. These and many more may be reckoned exceptions, and are not all heroes as well as heroines, exceptions to general rules. I wish to see women neither heroines, nor.

brutes, but reasonable creatures who, from having received a masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution. The Chevalier's life would have been filled with intrigue and scandal and more than a few international incidents, even if she hadn't also been a walking example of this strange performance of gender, both in the 18th century and today. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. The figure who had come to be best known as the Chevalier d'Ire d'Hour was assigned male at birth when she was born on October 5, 1728, into North France, a little town tucked into the hills of the wine regions of Burgundy. Her being assigned male delighted her father. They were a noble family, but noble and poor, a terrible combination. Once the Chevalier's father had a son, his own heir, he was entitled to a certain inheritance from his in-laws.

Physically, the Chevalier-Dillon remained small her entire life, five feet and four inches tall, with long legs, blue eyes, and a voice that was high-pitched enough that it was remarked upon. Presenting as a man, as her father's heir, Dianne studied civil and canon law to become a lawyer like her father's father. father. She graduated from Kalej Mazarra at age 21 in 1749. Over the next five years, like many other young, intelligent literary people, D'all made a name for herself as a political writer, when successful enough that she even gained some notoriety. Her career was also enough to propel her into a prominent job working as a secretary for a number of high-ranking court officials and as an official royal censor for history and literature. And then, ultimately, she got a job as the secretary of the diplomat sent on behalf of France to the court of the Russian Empress, Elizabeth. Or at least,

that was what Dion was doing in Russia officially. Un officially, she was working as an agent of the top secret spy network known as the Secret of the King, or Secret de Ruat. The The group was so secret that there were officials in the actual government who didn't know what existed. The point of the secret de Ruas was to serve the king, Louis XVI, exclusively, so that he could operate in certain foreign spears without involving France as a whole. Sometimes, like in Russia, the task of the secret de Ruhr ran contrary to the officially stated French diplomatic goals. The king's plan, as Dion later recounted, was to put his cousin, the Prince de Conti, on the Polish throne, so that Poland could operate as a satellite French nation.

And so Dian was meant to make nice with Empress Elizabeth of Russia to help foster good relationships with her, and to undermine Habsburg power in the area. There's very little corroborative documentation about Dianne's time in Russia, possibly because some of it was in a secret capacity. So for some details, we have to rely exclusively on her own, possibly embellished memoirs written later in life. According to Dian, at the time she was sent to Russia, the English were attempting to restrict French access to the Russian court. And so they were only allowing women and children across the border. So in order to complete her mission, Dianne took on the disguise of a woman, a woman named Lillard de Beaumont.

Dianne passed as a woman and then passed across the border. This is, according to Dianne's memoirs, the first instance of her publicly presenting as a woman, for political purposes in this case, but to ultimately positive effect. It's also worth pointing out that Empress Elizabeth's court in Russia was a place where cross-dressing was a common and delighted in form of entertainment. The Empress threw weekly cross-dressing parties called metamorphosis balls, in which men arrived in petticoats, and Elizabeth herself showed off her figure in men's riding clothes.

As a young future Catherine the Great would write of these parties, quote, The only woman who looked really well and completely a man was the Empress herself. As she was tall and powerful, male attire suited her. She had the handsomest leg. I had ever seen. Some people say Empress Elizabeth

just wanted to throw these parties because she was tired of hiding her handsomest leg underneath voluminous women's petticoats. By all accounts, Dionne dazzled in her post, but she was ultimately withdrawn from Russia when

France was pulled into a more immediate international conflict. The Seven Years' War with England. Dion was made a captain of dragoons and fought valiantly, distinguishing herself enough that she was made the secretary to the Duke of Vivernais, and was deployed to London to assist in the drafting of the peace treaty when the war ended. In 1763, Dior received the order of Salawi and was granted the title of Chevalier, the French equivalent of a knighthood. She was only 35 years old, and she was going to continue to be incredibly useful to the king.

After the seven years' war, France was in fragile condition. It had been stripped of its North American colonies, and it was saddled now with two things, enormous debts and a hatred of the English. The Secret de Ruat had a new goal to see if invading Britain was a thing that might be on the horizon. Dion was given a post as a temporary liaison to the English court, a short-term diplomatic job while the real ambassador, England was being appointed. Secretly, on the orders of King Louis the 15th, her job was also to scope out the English coastline

to see if there was a place that would lend itself to a French invasion. But our former good soldier, D'Aaugh, wasted very little time becoming a thorn in the king's side. She had expensive tastes, and she was formally reprimanded for importing too much expensive wine on France's dying, which would have been troublesome at any time, but was especially impudent when France was cash-strapped and deeply in debt from the war. But Dion was about to cause more trouble than just buying wine. Soon enough, the real, official ambassador to England was appointed, and Dionne was politely told to vacate the position. The official ambassador was a man named Comte de Guershi, who had almost no diplomatic experience.

and even fewer friends. He was a mediocre bureaucrat, and as soon as he arrived, Dian was to be demoted to serve as his secretary, even though Diann outranked him as a member of the secret. In short, it was an outrage, not to be abided, and Diann said as much in the numerous letters

that she wrote back to France, saying that it was an insult that she was expected to vacate the ambassador position for someone as uncouthable. unqualified and unlikable as the comte. Later, D'all would also write that she believed that she was being sabotaged back in France by the king's favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who was threatened by anyone but her having prominent influence over the king.

Dianne was fired for insolence and given two weeks to pack her bags and come back to France. At this point, she knew she was in trouble. Poor, low-ranking nobleman could be thrown into the best deal for less than what she did. She wouldn't be returning back to France for a party with sparkling grape juice in the office kitchen. And so, Dianne made the decision to just not. She just didn't return to France. Louis XIV was outraged, of course, and he demanded that Dianne be extradited, but the French foreign minister just shrugged and said that Dian was welcome to stay in Britain as a private citizen, the French crown went so far as to try to physically kidnap Dian and bring her

back to France, all to no avail. Without a country or any real political protection, Diann made an incredibly risky decision, the nuclear option. She published a book of state secrets, full of all of her correspondent through her service in the Secret de Ruat, with plenty of salacious details, and the promise that this was just the first volume of many, that there were even more scandalous secrets on the way. It was, like I said, a risky strategy, but one that paid off. Without political protection, Dion turned to the protection of celebrity and fame, the protective bubble of attention and the adoration of the British people for this woman who basically just betrayed the French government.

Dianne became an overnight international celebrity, the person everyone was talking about the next morning at the water cooler, so to speak. She was the main character of European politics for 15 minutes. In Gary Cates's biography, Monsieur Dian is a woman. The writer includes a contemporary letter from a 16-year-old girl writing to a friend, astounded by Dion's impudence. As for Dion's implicit blackmail to spill more French secrets, that worked too. Because she hadn't included the worst of King Louis' secrets, Louis XVIth quietly awarded Dionne a lifelong pension of 12,000 livres in exchange for the promise

that she would withhold the most incriminating secrets, and maybe the promise that she would continue to pass along some reports on British politics as long as she was over in England. Dion was in exile, in an uneasy truce with the French crown, but certainly not permitted to return to France. And so she began her life in exile in England as a political celebrity. It's also about now that the rumors started, rumors that were possibly started, but almost certainly fueled, by Dionne herself, that that scandalous French expat who had up until this point presented as a man was actually a woman.

This is when the bedding pool came about and the hordes of frenzied gamblers desperate to examine Dion's genitalia by assaulting her in the street. Dionne, for her part, kept coyly mum, continuing to present as a man until finally an investigator arrived on behalf of the French government

trying to discover the truth. At this point, De'an sighed, and became clean. Yes, she actually was a woman. She had been born a woman biologically, but was raised as a son because her tyrannical father was desperate to have an heir. In 1777, when Dianne was 49 years old, the court of the King's Bench made its formal declaration on behalf of the English government from Westminster, that yes, the figure. who had been known up until that point as Monsieur Dionne was actually a mademoiselle. Quote, she who had called herself the Chevalier Dionne until that day

was an individual who did not possess what the Appalachian man promised and that she was, quote, a virago disguised in a uniform. It was actually all part of an astonishingly clever ruse on the part of Dionne. As Hugh Ryan wrote for the website Them. Us, by claiming that she had secretly been a woman all along disguised as a man, Dionne was allowed to publicly transition in a way that never would have otherwise been socially acceptable. But by framing it as coming clean, not only was her transition acceptable, it was celebrated, met with absolutely no loss of status. Here she was, a good Christian woman who could no longer live a lie, who had pretended to be a man this entire time in noble service to the French king.

Now living as herself, Dianne's goal was to return to France as a heroine. A few years prior, King Louis XVIth had died, and his grandson, Louis XVI, had taken the throne. Louis XVIth had no ambitions to invade Britain, and he also did not see the need for dual foreign. services. And so the secret de Ruat was abolished and Dion's pension along with it. It took 14 months of negotiation between Louis XVI's representative and Diot to negotiate her return to France, but ultimately the terms were settled with an agreement that came to be known as the

transaction, which allowed Dion's return to France, stipulating that she would henceforth present as a woman, though she would still be allowed to wear the insignia of the or order of San Luis. Her title was changed from Chevalier to Chevalier, making her the first female knight. And even though Dianne wanted to continue to wear her dragoon uniform, the king wouldn't allow it. And so the transaction also provided funds for new outfits from Marie Antoinette's dressmaker Rose Bertie. On November 21, 1777, Mademoiselle la Chevalierre, Dianne emerged from a four-hour toilette in an elaborate dress with a powdered wig and a face full of makeup to be formally presented at Versailles. It was a rebirth of sorts. She had returned to France,

and she had returned as herself. Unfortunately, Dian was about to learn a terrible lesson about what it meant to be a woman in the 1700s, in a word, boring. For an unmarried, relatively poor noble woman, French court offered very little to do. There was sitting around, getting dressed, chatting, maybe playing cards. For a woman who had spent the earlier decades of her life traveling the world as an international spy-slash-diplomat

of the political world, being a lady sitting around in petticoats was mind-numbing. When France joined the American colony's revolution against the English, Dionne tried to put on her dragoon uniform again and fight. She suggested that she could assemble an all-female battalion. The French government suggested that she joined a convent. She was so insistent in her ambitions to join the war efforts

that ultimately Dion was arrested and then imprisoned in the dungeon below the chateau of Dijon. for 19 days, upon which she was released as long as she promised to shut up about the whole wanting to go into battle thing. Disheartened, Dion returned to England. She said it was just temporary to settle some business, but it became fairly clear that she had no intention of returning to France. At least in England, she was able to escape some of the restrictions of the highly rigid French court. And soon she would have no choice but to stay in London. The French revolution broke out, and though Dion was safe in England, her small pension was lost, as was all

of her family property in Tener. Now a woman in her 60s, Dionne was impoverished, forced to sell her possessions and her vast collection of books to get by. Her main form of income was donning her full dress and participating in public fencing demonstrations where she would best men. But her short career as a fencing performer ended at age 68 with an injury. At this point, for financial reasons, Dianne was forced to take a roommate, an old widow named Mrs. Cole. Mrs. Cole was the one who would go on to discover Dian's dead body, just a few years after Dian was paralyzed from a fall.

The Chevalier Diaz died at 81 years old, impoverished. Though Dianne had spent the last 33 years of her life living as a woman, upon her death, Mrs. Cole pulled back the bedsheets to reveal that Dian had male genitalia, although it was also noted that Dian had certain female sex characteristics. None of that information feels very relevant or scientific to me, but contemporary historians suggest that Diom might have been biologically intersex. In the end, that feels far less important and far less relevant to the realities of Dion's actual life, the way she lived, presenting as a man which granted her the access and opportunities of education,

and then cleverly pretending that she had been a cross-dressing man her entire life so that she could publicly transition and live as a woman. The famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft thought of Dian as a woman on par with Sappho and the famous letter writer Eloise or Eloisa. Dion both defied and defined modern conventions of gender. It's a strange fallacy that people assume trans people are a new phenomenon. The vocabulary might be new, but presentations of gender throughout history are much more varied and more nebulous than some. Some people seem desperate to keep believing. The Chevalier Dionne became an international celebrity presenting as a man,

and then she did it again, backwards and in heels. That's the story of the Chevalier Dion, but continue listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her legacy. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents Soccer Moms. So I'm Leanne. This is my best friend Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the Hipson's High School.

Absolutely. Now a redacted amount of years later. We're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Sidebar.

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I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You are. I'm lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team, and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous.

It's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes. But over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full on over sharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Shortsy when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife?

I almost flipped a pizza in your lap. Oh my God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol. I got to blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in. Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally la la la.

Listen to untraditionally la la la on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A portrait of the Chevalier-Diont now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery in London, featuring Dianne with a full head of curls in a gown and a hat with a tricolor ribbon, meant to show her support for the French revolutionaries. The announcement about the portraits purchased back in 2016 is wildly, let's say, casual in its language, with the guardian misgendering her and switching seemingly at random between pronouns. At the end of her life, Dian was buried in a private plot at St. Pank. although her grave was lost when the church was constructed into a train station.

Maybe it's symbolically resonant. Her soul is in a place of change and departure, where no one has to stay in the same place for too long. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noblebloodtales.com.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people

and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.